I blinked, her inhumanly beautiful face coming into focus.
“Did you find friends out here?” she asked, still cupping my cheek gently, but her eyes were growing hard and calculating as she searched my face. “You can tell me, my dear. You are in no trouble. Who have you been staying with? Who helped you?”
Her voice was almost drugging, luring me to answer her. Like fish hooks digging deep into my belly to tug out the truth by force.
Was this what Odran meant? About the Brid still having her words, her voice, and therefore not being truly powerless, even after entering the Midsith?
My eyes darted back over to the kelpie, then away again just as fast, because I didn’t know what the Brid would do to him if she saw me looking.
“I’ll come with you,” I said in a near-whisper.
The Brid’s eyes flared, then narrowed with suspicion. She didn’t question me further, but that brief look made anxious fear stab through my gut, telling me that I was, once again, in way over my head.
As she ushered me into her carriage, I glanced back at Odran once more.Please tell them, I projected at him.Please tell Nua and Gillie. Make sure they know I’m still alive.Tell them I’m sorry.
I knew without a doubt that the Brid would look for me if I ran. She was saying soft words, calling me her son, but I’d seen the calculating gleam in her eye.
Gillie’s words rang terrifyingly clear in my head.‘Don’t expect the Brid to be any better. Because she isn’t.’
I believed him.